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I don't mean that sorry excuse of a defeat. I mean she batters him around like a ragdoll, because Houki didn't do anything but to play dollhouse fantasy with Ichika's training time.

Cecilia doesn't do the insta-fall in love but gains a measure of respect for him. she'd still be goofy ojou-sama but she knows when business has to be in the equation. So it contrasts with Houki who is forcing Ichika to follow the path of the bushido, while Cecilia is doing things textbook. Though her teaching is better than Houki, the level of her explanation isn't something Ichika can grasp. Like college student trying to explain basic algebra to a 1st grader.

To explain, it's because my interpretation of the Houki of that time, she wasn't training Ichika because he had a match in a week. She had 2 motives. 1 was to spend more time with him. 2 was to make him revert to the Ichika in her memories. She's trying to bring back those memories.

That's why I said Spoiled brat in Evil Bitch form. She's just a kid who wants something but to the world she's quiet violent anti-social borderline sociopathic.

I think that part of Houki is supposed to be hated. The problem is that it feels so half-assed. All the scenarios feel so half-assed. Again it feels like he wants us to sympathize instead of empathize. The Silver Gospel when Houki gets that wake up call? Who felt more developed then? Her or the one that gave her the slap? Rin right? Houki just felt plain same. Why is that? Because she didn't seem to act much differently. We're supposed to believe that post slap Houki is way better than pre-slap Houki only because the slap occurred. Just something in me cannot condone it.

I don't think either of them act that different, really. In stories like this, "Status Quo is God". Its like Sharpay learning her lesson at the end of every high school musical only to turn even dumber and shallower by the next movie.

She's lightened up; as of the fifth volume, Ichika's no longer training in kendo and Houki doesn't rag on him for it. Hell, according to V8, the reason Houki could see through the fake Ichika was that he was too good in kendo. Safe to say she's gotten over it.

She did get schooled...at the end of every movie. Then she's back to being "Queen Bitch" by the next movie.

I always thought that was a side effect of the near kiss, and the whole "awkward avoidance" thing. Ofcourse she did get better but for the most part it's because she knows she has a chance or has a damn better chance than the other girls.

The world of IS has the subliminal message that "Girls = More awesome than guys". The only two guys we see are Ichika and Dan; the former's a complete ninny who acts like a descendant of Leeroy and the latter is a wannabe chick magnet. Compare these two to people like Tatenashi or Chifuyu and the male gender looks somewhat pathetic.

It's funny until we started realizing the social status of the two genders in the IS-verse.

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"You cannot be bad at watching a movie. You cannot be bad at listening to an album.
...But you can be bad at playing a videogame, and the game will punish you and deny you access to the rest of the videogame."

Many other harem manga's do this, but at the very least the males shown there are COMPETENT: The male lead from Seirei Tsukai no Blade dance is just as strong as the other female leads despite having a weakened spirit and was able to beat another male who implanted himself with dozens of spirits. Likewise, the male lead from Unbreakable Machine Doll shows his competence by being the ONLY puppetmaster willing to fight alongside his partner and even uses wrestling moves and flashbang grenades to fight against the obviously stronger automatons.

Contrast that to Ichika whose sole strategy is "Charge forward with my energy draining blade and hope I win" rather than use any actual strategy.